The NYT offers up op-ed space to another advocate of on-going U.S. militarization

shit... no sooner had i finished my modo rant (see previous post) and gone back to my nyt headline email, than i saw this, the very next op-ed on the list...

We Still Need the Big Guns
By CHARLES J. DUNLAP Jr.

Looking ahead, America needs a military centered not on occupying another country but on denying potential adversaries the ability to attack our interests.

this one got me curious enough to click on to the full piece, only to find that it was as sabre-rattling as the teaser suggests...

Many analysts understandably attribute the success [in Iraq] to our troops’ following the dictums of the Army’s lauded new counterinsurgency manual. While the manual is a vast improvement over its predecessors, it would be a huge mistake to take it as proof — as some in the press, academia and independent policy organizations have — that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force.

Unfortunately, starry-eyed enthusiasts have misread the manual to say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds with teams of anthropologists, propagandists and civil-affairs officers armed with democracy-in-a-box kits and volleyball nets. They dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents.

let's just take a few choice items and look at them for a moment...

• "our interests" - i always love that one... i hear it all the time, and each time it never fails to strike me as code for "whatever the u.s. corporate, government, and military elites want, wherever in the world it may be, they will get, irrespective of anybody else's 'interests'..."

• iraq "success" - this neocon, bush administration, david petraeus-spawned talking point not only glosses over the reality of what's happening in iraq, but also serves to distract us from the fact that even administration HINTS that there MIGHT BE in some INDETERMINATE FUTURE the REMOTE POSSIBILITY of TROOP REDUCTION or even, god forbid, TROOP WITHDRAWAL are now OFFICIALLY DEAD...

• "proof ... that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force" - zero acknowledgement here that the insurgents just may be fighting to get their country back, and that we are there, fighting to keep that from happening...

• "starry-eyed enthusiasts ... say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds [and] dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents" - need i comment here...? i can only assume that it will be a dark day indeed for the united states when "killing or capturing" is no longer the order of the day...

but, wait...! there's more...

Looking ahead, America needs a military centered not on occupying another country but on denying potential adversaries the ability to attack our interests. This is not a task for counterinsurgents, but rather for an unapologetically high-tech military that substitutes machines for the bodies of young Americans.

revolted yet...? and just so's ya know the source of the revulsion...

Charles J. Dunlap Jr. is an Air Force major general and the author of “Shortchanging the Joint Fight?,” an assessment of the Army’s counterinsurgency manual.

could it be his own "interests" he's advocating for here...? nah... silly me... of COURSE not...

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Presidential extortion

happy holidays, all you government employees out there...! our president wants to hold your jobs and holiday shopping money hostage to his insanity... what a GUY...!

President Bush warned Congress yesterday that the Pentagon will soon have to start laying off civilian employees and reducing operations at U.S. military bases unless lawmakers send him an emergency war funding bill that does not mandate troop withdrawals from Iraq.

full disclosure: both my son and daughter-in-law, with whom i make my home when i am in the u.s., are civilian government employees, altho' not with the defense department...

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AMERICAblog posts a must-read on Iraq from an Iraq war vet

and i'm taking the liberty of re-posting it here... read it...

As the war drums were beating for Iraq I knew something was wrong. I was paying attention to President Bush as he continually accused Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction and being linked to terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda. Yet, there was no solid proof that any of Bush's accusations had any validity to them. I guess if you repeat the same lies over and over again they begin to sound true. How else could Bush have tricked the nation into an unjust and unnecessary war in Iraq?

At the time I was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. It seemed as if the moment I arrived there in June 2002 the only message being sent from the top down was to be ready for war with Iraq. We trained vigorously that summer for war. And in January 2003 my unit deployed to Fort Irwin, California for a month long desert warfare training exercise. Immediately upon returning from Fort Irwin my unit received orders to deploy to Kuwait for the military buildup to topple Saddam Hussein and his government in Iraq.

We scrambled to get our gear and equipment ready for what would be the inevitable war with Iraq. It took a couple weeks to prepare, get medically screened, and write out our wills. Then we were put on standby to deploy at a moments notice.

There was a mixed sentiment among the troops I had served with at the time. For some troops Bush's word was enough for them to go to Iraq to fight and die for what they believed was necessary for our country. There were some who didn't pay attention to the politics. They felt that they were soldiers who had no other option but to go to war and take their chances. In a sense, that is what good soldiers do. I felt alone for the most part because I kept paying attention to what Bush was saying and what the UN weapons inspectors were reporting. To me it just wasn't adding up.

But before I could blink my eyes I was on the border of Kuwait and Iraq ready to invade on day one. It wasn't long before we received our attack orders and pushed into Iraq.

It was a rough ride to Baghdad. Right from the start 150,000 troops were cluttered and stacked upon each other with our vehicles breaking down due to the harsh terrain of the southern Iraqi desert. We were in the middle of nowhere and out in the open. If there were ever a time for Saddam to use his weapons of mass destruction it would have been the perfect opportunity for him. We were in the perfect location for him to attack us -- out in the open desert with no other population. He could have launched the alleged stockpile of WMD directly upon the US military and killed no one but our troops. If Bush really was convinced that Saddam had such a massive WMD arsenal why would he place us in the most vulnerable position for him to use them on us? Probably because Bush knew they did not exist otherwise he never would have allowed such a stupid battle plan to take place.

We pushed into Baghdad facing heavy resistance from the primarily Shiite populated cities in southern Iraq. It was strange being that the Shiites were Saddam's enemies who he had oppressed for decades. To me it was clear that they hated us more than Saddam because we were invaders from the west. Saddam might have been a horrible man, but we were worse in their eyes. It was frightening to realize that the people who Saddam murdered by the thousands actually preferred him to us.

My stay in Baghdad was not much different. It was very confusing because the enemy was so unidentifiable. We didn't know who we were fighting, and that made it extremely difficult to distinguish between the civilian population and the insurgents. As time goes on you stop distinguishing between the two. My perception was that we were fighting the Iraqi people who resented our presence in their country -- not Al-Qaeda as George Bush kept drilling into the minds of the American people.

We were attacked almost on a daily basis by rocket propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, improvised explosive devices, and mortars. This kind of violent activity led to thousands of pre-dawn raids on Iraqi homes. And when you kick in the door you enter the homes as if you are going after Bin Laden himself. In a sense we started to treat the Iraqi people as if they are all terrorists causing them to resent us even more. In the following days of each raid violent activity would double and for some reason no one could understand why.

I participated in the training of the Iraqi Security Forces. Their training cycle was one week long and it was extremely insufficient. There was no trust factor between us and them. During their weapons qualification I can recall being told by my range NCO to stand directly behind the Iraqi soldier just in case he tried to turn the weapon on us. My instructions were to "jump him and kill him." When the training cycle was over we incorporated them into our units to accompany us on missions in order to train them. Prior to the missions we never told them where we were going because we were positive that the insurgency had infiltrated the Iraqi Security Forces. If they knew where the mission would take place they could tip off the larger insurgency element and set us up for an ambush. Almost all of them covered their faces out of fear or shame of being seen with American troops in their communities. As a rifle team leader leading a team of Iraqis wearing hoods and carrying AK-47 assault rifles down a narrow alley in Baghdad it is needless to say that my anxiety level was through the roof.

Before I left Iraq I made a promise to myself that I would do everything in my power to stop this war if I was lucky enough to make it home.

Upon honorable discharge from the US Army in February 2005 I relocated to the Washington, DC area. I immediately became a vocal critic of the war and traveled the halls of Congress going door to door hoping to share my experiences with those who empowered Bush to send us to war. For a few months it fell on deaf ears, but after a while some members of Congress began to listen.

From there on I spoke at rallies, demonstrations, town hall meetings, and on behalf of anti Iraq war candidates running for office. I joined the Democratic leadership in promoting legislation that called for an end to the war.

It's been years now and sometimes I feel out of breath and tired from screaming at the top of my lungs for end to this madness in Iraq. But we are still there and it appears that there is really no end in sight.

Even General Patraeus can't say that we are safer because of the war in Iraq. During our troop surge the Iraqi government fell apart. We have granted amnesty to Sunni militias in Anbar with American blood on their hands, and we are now arming and financing them out of desperation to stop the violence. We are doing the same for Shiite militias loyal to Al Sadr who is a mass murderer of US troops. The Iraqi government, police force, and security forces are rampant with corruption. Is this the Iraq that our troops were sent off to die for? If Bush cared the slightest bit I would love to ask him that question.

Now it has been suggested by General Petraeus that the surge has been such a success that we can bring home 30,000 troops by this summer. Really? That would mean that if there were any gains made by the surge they will evaporate almost immediately into thin air. We will be right back were we started with fewer troops in an extremely hostile environment -- The Rumsfeld Doctrine. What then? Do we have another surge? Is that possible with a broken military? OF COURSE NOT.

Bush and loyalists in Congress won't even allow our troops to rest after mulitple deployments that go above and beyond the call of duty.

During the last Democratic presidential debate the front runners for the nomination could not even guarantee that our troops would be home by the end of their first term in 2013. For me that is just tragic to hear.

The American people want an end to this war so badly. If the politicians will not listen it is our duty as Americans to make them listen. We owe it to our country and our troops to ensure that our members of Congress no longer allow themselves to be bullied by a coward like George W. Bush. If Bush vetoes legislation for our troops and an end to the war Congress must shove it right back in his face. We must act now while there is still a chance to make Congress do their job as a co-equal branch of government and start bringing this war to an end. They need to be equally as defiant as Bush has been for the last 7 years and fight fire with fire when it comes to this President. After all, that is what we elected them to do.

I will fight for an end to this war with my last breath. We all must.


John Bruhns
Iraq Veteran

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There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow

spiegel interviews seymour hersh...

key points...

• We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people.

• I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa.

• I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life.

• This guy [Bush] believes he's doing God's work.

• There are two very clear options [in Iraq]: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow.

• The fuel that keeps the [Iraq] war going is us.

• [T]he president has accepted ethnic cleansing [in Iraq].

here's some of the meat...

Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has with Iran come from?

Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us to the brink with Tehran?

Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?

Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?

Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?

Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The "Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?

Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.

SPIEGEL ONLINE:So what are the lessons of the Surge ... ?

Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not.

and check out what hersh has to say about his old employer, the new york times...

The First Amendment failed and the American press failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it. They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have to live with it.

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"[The Iraq media debate] is all just complete blather*, and never means anything"

we-e-e-e-e-ell... i would dispute the term "blather*"...

glenn greenwald...

It has been extremely difficult over the past several months to pay any attention at all to the discussion of Iraq from our political and media stars. It is all just complete blather, and never means anything. All of these stern and worried and tough words spill endlessly from their mouths -- they all proclaimed in May that September was the Day of Reckoning: there would be bipartisan, forced withdrawal if the political benchmarks weren't met -- only for the same thing to happen over and over. The conditions are not met; Bush proclaims we are staying; and the Washington Establishment submits.

[...]

(1) If X does not happen, there is no justification for staying; (2) X has not happened; (3) we must stay. That is why nothing they say has any meaning. Staying in Iraq is always the only real goal. Everything else is just pretext and blather to continue to do that.

perhaps i'm being excessively picky, but i think that "talking foolishly" ISN'T what is happening here... i think glenn destroys his own case for "blathering" when he says that "staying in iraq is always the only real goal"... if the "blathering" were being done "foolishly," it wouldn't HAVE a goal... instead, i believe it is being done consciously and deliberately...

blath·er
Pronunciation: 'bla-[th]&r
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): blath·ered; blath·er·ing /-[th](&-)ri[ng]/
Etymology: Old Norse blathra; akin to Middle High German blOdern to chatter
: to talk foolishly at length -- often used with on

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Why is this on the WaPo front page?

three guesses and the first two don't count...

Petraeus Open to Pullout of 1 Brigade
Top General in Iraq Said to Favor Caution

By Robin Wright and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 7, 2007; Page A01

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus has indicated a willingness to consider a drawdown of one brigade of between 3,500 and 4,500 U.S. troops from Iraq early next year, with more to follow over the next months based on conditions on the ground, according to a senior U.S. official.

subliminal messages:

• Petraeus is flexible by showing a willingness to reduce troop strength
• there must be progress taking place in iraq in order for a drawdown of any magnitude to be considered
• Petraeus' report to Congress will offer some hope

followed by disinformation...

The pullouts would be contingent on the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to sustain what the administration heralds as recent gains in security and to make further gains in stabilizing Iraq.

followed by an outright lie...

Administration officials say the president will make the final decision about the overall strategy in Iraq, but they suggested that Bush is unlikely to depart significantly from recommendations made by top military officials.

my god, they simply can't stop themselves can they...?

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The Iraq withdrawal support calculator

just foreign policy offers a handy tool that lets you determine the level of support in your congressional district for iraq withdrawal, and notes that, if congress REALLY represented public opinion, we would have a veto-proof iraq withdrawal plan, post haste...

Just Foreign Policy: "Withdrawal Support Calculator"
Estimate support for withdrawal from Iraq in your Congressional District.

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Bush to R's: Don't cut and run

pound it home to those miserable "cut-and-run" republicans...

Freedom's Watch, a conservative group, plans to launch a $15 million advertising campaign in 20 states today. The group's spokesman, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, says the goal is to tell people that the buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq is working.

"We want to get the message to both Democrats and Republicans: Don't cut and run, fully fund the troops, and victory is the only objective," Fleischer says.

it's perfectly logical... anyone and anything, republican or democrat, that might serve as an obstacle to gaining unfettered power and keeping staggering rivers of cash flowing will be a target... bushco has already proven beyond anybody's ability to dispute that it awards its support and loyalty conditionally, that is to say only on the basis of UNCONDITIONAL support and loyalty toward bushco... political party, religious affiliation, public standing, credibility, reputation - none of that will shield you from the wrath of bushco should you show one iota of deviation from that unconditionality...

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"President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk 'mass killings on a horrific scale.' What do we have today, sir?' "

i seriously believe that it doesn't make one goddam, teeny-weeny bit of difference HOW many bush supporters jump ship, george bush isn't going to change course until hell freezes over (which, given that it snowed last week in buenos aires, it just might)...

The Pittsburgh newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife yesterday called the Bush administration's plans to stay the course in Iraq a "prescription for American suicide."

The editorial in the Tribune-Review added, "And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about 'sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved,' we had to question his mental stability."

It continued: "President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk 'mass killings on a horrific scale.' What do we have today, sir?

"If the president won't do the right thing and end this war, the people must. The House has voted to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April. The Senate must follow suit.

"Our brave troops should take great pride that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein. And they should have no shame in leaving Iraq. For it will not be, in any way, an exercise in tail-tucking and running.

"America has done its job.

"It's time for the Iraqis to do theirs."

again, there's a lot i don't understand about a lot of things, but i simply cannot grasp why our nation has not, en masse, marched on the white house with rakes and hoes, buckets of tar, and bags of feathers, and run these guys out of town on a rail...

TARRED AND FEATHERED AND RIDDEN OUT OF TOWN ON A RAIL

"At Salem, on September 7, 1768, an informer named Robert Wood 'was stripped, tarred and feathered and placed on a hogshead under the Tree of Liberty on the Common.' This is the first record of the term 'tarred and feathered' in America. Tarring and feathering was a cruel punishment where hot pine tar was applied from head to toe on a person and goose feathers were stuck into the tar. The person was then ignited and ridden out of town on a rail (tied to a splintery rail), beaten with sticks and stoned all the while. A man's skin often came off when he removed the tar. It was a common practice to tar and feather Tories who refused to join the revolutionary cause, one much associated with the Liberty Boys, but the practice was known here long before the Revolution. In fact, it dates back even before the first English record of tarring and feathering, an 1189 statute made under Richard the Lionhearted directing that any thief voyaging with the Crusaders 'shal have his head shorne and boyling pitch powred upon his head, and feathers or downe strewn upon the same, whereby he may be known, and so at the first landing place they shal come to, there to be cast up.' Though few have been tarred and feathered or ridden out of town on a rail in recent years, the expression remains to describe anyone subjected to indignity and infamy." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

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More Iraq thoughts (and one on Iran too)

[BUMPED]

the only way anything is going to change in iraq is getting bush and his criminal compadres OUT of office... bush has dug us in so far, has served up so much kool-aid to the faithful, and painted himself into such a tight corner, there's just no way he will let us leave... any draw-down will be purely cosmetic political salve...

i also don't believe that it's bush's intention to "hand it over to his successor" to "clean up the mess..." i think it's his intention to make SURE the next president - assuming there IS a next president and bush doesn't remain in office after suspending the elections and declaring martial law in the face of a "national emergency" - will find it impossible to extricate the u.s. without creating an even bigger mess, something that igniting a conflagration with iran could certainly do... actually, a full-blown conflict with iran could serve a dual purpose... besides making an incredible mess exponentially bigger, it could also serve as the basis for declaring that national emergency...

[UPDATE]

but, hey...! it doesn't HAVE to be iran that serves as the flashpoint...

from juan cole...

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (a Kurd) warned Monday that 140,000 Turkish troops were massed at the border with Iraq. Ankara accuses Iraqi Kurdistan of giving safe harbor to PKK terrorists who are blowing up soldiers and others in Turkey's eastern Anatolia. The Turkish government and military have threatened to engage in hot pursuit and to make border incursions if necessary to deal with the PKK threat. Last Sunday, thousands of Turks demonstrated in Ankara against the PKK, Iraqi Kurdistan and the United States, which they blame for allowing Iraq to become a terrorist base against Turkey.

[UPDATE II]

i finally found the article i was looking for earlier that backs up my comment above about iran possibly being the flashpoint...

The U.S. navy has sent a third aircraft carrier to its Fifth Fleet area of operations, which includes Gulf waters close to Iran, the navy said on Tuesday.

"Enterprise (aircraft carrier) provides navy power to counter the assertive, disruptive and coercive behaviour of some countries, as well as support our soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan," a U.S. Navy statement said.

[UPDATE III]

the pentagon 'splains it all for us...

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to up the number of carriers to three, and said the deployment of the Enterprise was part of a "routine swap."

"Has the department made a decision for 3.0 carriers in the Gulf? No. They haven't," Whitman said. "What Secretary Gates has said is still the current guidance with respect to the level of effort in the Centcom area of responsibility."

yeah... ok... whatever...

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Froomkin on Bush's "new phase" in Iraq

as dear leader prepares to announce his plan for a "post-surge phase" in iraq, dan froomkin offers us this...

[I]t's time to move the goalposts. Or, carrying the analogy further, to replace them with toothpicks.

meanwhile, as i said in the previous post, we ain't leavin'... you can bank on it...

A Bush administration report to Congress citing a lack of progress by the Baghdad government is "a look at the starting line" of the U.S. troop surge and shouldn't be used by critics to demand withdrawal, a White House spokesman said Tuesday.

"What Congress will get this week is a snapshot of the beginning of the retooling of the mission in Iraq," said Tony Snow, who defended the administration's war policy and argued that it's too soon to be talking about end-game strategies.

"Some of the benchmarks have been made, some of them haven't," he said. Snow confirmed the coming report would say that Iraq has not met all the benchmarks set for it. The nature of the report was revealed earlier to The Associated Press by a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Rebuffing all such talk, President Bush said he won't succumb to political pressure. During a visit to Parma, Ohio on Tuesday, he reiterated that troop levels in Iraq "will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C."

ain't gonna happen...

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Pretending there's a real debate about staying or going in Iraq

i simply cannot believe that we are wasting our time once again with a big national discussion about how bad things are going in iraq and whether or not we should stay or go... case in point is this fresh post on think progress...

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) was one of many conservatives breaking ranks with Bush’s Iraq policy.

“It should be clear to the president that there needs to be a new strategy,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. “Our policy in Iraq is drifting.”

This morning on CNN, Alexander undercut his own stated desire to change course. While announcing his support for an amendment that would adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, Alexander said, “The surge can be within this larger strategy of the Iraq Study Group.”

the bush administration has demonstrated in countless ways that they have no intention of leaving iraq, now or ever... yet, we still all get sucked up in talking about it, thinking they will somehow magically change their minds, glomming on to every repub that emits the faintest odor of dissent... forget it people... ain't gonna happen...

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Up is down, black is white, dark is light, backward is forward, and shit doesn't stink

up...

nyt...

[I]nside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

down...

tony snow...

“There is no debate right now on withdrawing forces right now from Iraq,” Snow said.

black...

ruy teixeira...

Despite four months of a military surge in Iraq, 68 percent of the public either want to withdraw right away (25 percent) or begin bringing troops home within the next year (43 percent). Just 26 percent want to keep troops in Iraq “for as long as it takes to win the war.”

white...

karl rove...

Yesterday on NBC Nightly News, White House correspondent John Yang said that Bush’s senior political aide Karl Rove has apparently calculated that Iraq will not affect the 2008 elections. Rove, who spoke Sunday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, reportedly said “Iraq may not be a big issue in the next election because, he hopes, troops will be coming home by then.”

dark...

wapo...

n the Shiite Turkmen hamlet of Amerli, 50 miles south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, grief and anger mixed with bewilderment in the aftermath of one of the single deadliest attacks on Iraqis since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Almost everyone seemed to have lost relatives or friends, if not entire families.

The death toll rose to more than 140, but 20 people remain missing, police officials said Sunday. More than 270 people were injured, they added.

light...

tony snow...

The new levels of attacks “fit a pattern that we see throughout the region,” he said, “which is that when you see things moving towards success, or when you see signs of success, that there are acts of violence.”

poverty is wealth, repression is freedom, crony capitalism is free enterprise, fear-mongering is leadership, obstruction of justice is openness, pollution is clean water and air... geeez, i need a lexicon of special terms just to keep up...

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The Foreign Minister of Iraq's puppet government cites potential civil war if U.S. pulls out

will somebody please tell this guy that the civil war has been underway for quite some time now and that he needs somebody else to write him a new talking point...?

Iraq's foreign minister warned on Monday that a quick American military withdrawal from the country could lead to civil war and the collapse of the government, as pressure on the Bush administration for a pullout grows.

oh, btw, the government is pretty much ready to collapse anyway...

juan cole...

CBS News is reporting that on July 15, the Sunni Arab Iraqi Accord Front will call a vote of no confidence in the Iraqi parliament against prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. CBS says that Sunni vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, who is spear-heading this move, met with US VP Dick Cheney and that Cheney may have approved the move.

nonetheless, we have folks like the esteemed senator from south carolina, lindsey graham, still insisting on just how well things are going over there...

“The military part of the surge is working beyond my expectations,” Graham said. “We literally have the enemy on the run. The Sunni part of Iraq has really rejected al-Qaida all over the country. We’re getting more information about al-Qaida operations than we’ve ever received.”

just another day of fighting and dying...

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Uh-oh. One of the biggest newspapers throws down the gauntlet

mark the headline... mark the newspaper... mark the day...

Editorial
The Road Home

Published: July 8, 2007

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

it's a start... now, let's have another one calling for bush and cheney to resign...

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I don't believe Doolittle, Domenici, Lugar, any of them

oh, yeah, they're running away from bush... oh, yeah, they're calling for a change in iraq policy... oh, yeah, they want u.s. troops "off the front lines as soon as possible..."

Rep. John Doolittle, a consevative California congressman, today joined others in his party rapidly deserting the president on the Iraq war.

[...]

He said U.S. troops should be pulled back from the front lines "as soon as possible" and the fighting turned over to Iraqi forces.

[...]

Earlier today, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) also called for a change in course in U.S. military strategy in Iraq — without waiting for the September report on the "surge." He joined other Republican senators as Richard Lugar who have recently broken with the White House on this issue.

note that he said "off the front lines," not "out of the country..."

talk is cheap... i'm with harry reid... put up or shut up... i don't believe that george, no matter how many repubs speak out against iraq, has the slightest intention of pulling out... we are in iraq forever... if there is a pulldown, it will be cosmetic only and simply to paper over dissent within the party... let's face it, if the number of troops added since the escalation began were pulled out tomorrow, we'd just be back where we were late last year, but the media would be falling all over itself reporting on the so-called withdrawal, and the repubs would be congratulating themselves for standing up to the president... what a gigantic crock of steaming bullshit...

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No and no

dick morris, one of those perpetual political consultants and talking heads who never seems to be discredited no matter how stupid he comes across, poses two ridiculously easy questions that even the feeble-minded will have no trouble answering...

Will George W. Bush try to steal a page from Richard Nixon and, reading the handwriting on the wall after a dismal showing in the congressional elections, begin to pull troops out of Iraq by the end of the year? If he does, will it save the Republican Party?

oh, puh-l-e-e-e-e-eze... IF - and it's a super-sized, industrial-strength "IF" - ANY troops are withdrawn by the end of the year, if will be a cosmetic gesture only... there is no way in HELL that the u.s. is leaving iraq... no WAY... and to suggest that such a move could save the republican party is so absurd in the extreme, it hardly deserves the energy spent to comment... the ONLY way the republican party can be saved is with a radical makeover, a makeover that would require disavowing george bush, his band of criminals, and the illegal and unconstitutional tenets of the coup d'etat that began with the scotus decision of 12 december 2000... but the proposition that GEORGE BUSH could SAVE the republican party AFTER trashing all this country AND his own party stands for, is patently absurd... but, needless to say, that won't stop dick morris from nattering on...

If Bush decides to act in this way, he will be doing himself, his party, and the country a big favor. There is still time to rescue the fortunes of the Republican Party in the 2008 election. It is Iraq that is dragging the president’s ratings down and killing his party’s chances in the election. Bush’s ratings on the economy are not bad, and he still draws commendations for his battle against terrorism. If he began to pull out troops, he could begin to recover his personal ratings and move his party up.

[...]

In taking the Iraq issue out of contention in the 2008 election, Bush will have rescued his party from what is now almost certain defeat.

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Without Iraq, Bush has quite a record to present to the country in 2008. The economy seems to be avoiding a recession, unemployment remains low, North Korea seems to be caving in, and the Iranian regime seems to be in real trouble at home.

Bush, after all, did relent and fire Donald Rumsfeld — although too late to influence the 2006 election. Maybe he is getting smart enough to extricate himself and his party from the mess in Iraq.

in your dreams, dickie...

dick morris, professional asshole...

Morris is best known for managing Bill Clinton's successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President of the United States. His tenure on that campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had allowed a prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, to listen in on conversations with the President. Morris then turned his focus to media commentary. He now writes a weekly column for the New York Post which is carried nationwide, and he appears regularly on the Fox News Channel for political commentary.

[...]

More recently, Morris has emerged as a harsh critic of the Clintons and has written several books that criticize them, including Rewriting History, a rebuttal to Senator Hillary Clinton's Living History. Morris once joked he will leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were to be elected president in 2008.

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Suspicious of establishing a long-term presence in the Middle East? Ya THINK...?

i've read enough of dan froomkin to know that he's not making the statement in the last paragraph of this snippet as a blinding glimpse of the obvious...

The White House, long irritated by the frequent use of Vietnam as a metaphor for Iraq, embraced its own analogy yesterday: South Korea.

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It's troubling because American troops have been in South Korea for more than 50 years -- while polls show the American public wants them out of Iraq within a year.

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And it's telling because it gives credence to persistent suspicions that establishing a long-term strategic presence in the Middle East was a primary motivation for this misbegotten war in the first place.

anybody with two brain cells to rub together could have figured out that we went in to iraq to stay, and every single thing that's happened since has borne out that conclusion... i am with atrios 110%, we are going to be in iraq forever, as long as this crowd and their republican and democratic enablers in congress continue to have their way...

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We wanted Iraq, we've GOT Iraq, and it's never going away

bush has his fresh pile of money with no strings attached, so we can now prepare ourselves for the inevitable... september will come and go, the new year will come and go, next spring will come and go, the 2008 election campaign will shift into high gear and the party conventions will come and go, the new president will be inaugurated, and we will STILL be in iraq...

"I have tried to discourage my Republican colleagues from saying that September is some kind of seminal moment," said McCain. "I am aware the American people are frustrated. I share that frustration. I don't think the American people are aware of the consequences of failure."

january, february, march, april, may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december, january, february, march, april, may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december, january, february………………

we’re NEVER going to leave…

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White House mind-f***

from think progress...

[White House] spokeswoman Dana Perino: “We, of course, would like to be in a position to bring down troop levels, but certain conditions, as assessed by senior military advisers and commanders on the ground, need to be met to warrant that.”

we are there for the oil, for the money, and to keep things in a constant state of turmoil, which, of course, makes it easier to keep the money flowing and to maintain control of the oil... we ain't leavin', not until the bought-and-paid-for republican, democratic, media, oil, defense and super-rich power structures are brought down and replaced with individuals who are actually dedicated to the common good... as atrios says, na ga ha pen...

[UPDATE]

although it should be perfectly obvious that my earlier educated guess (the troop withdrawal discussion was leaked by "official sources" in an effort to push george in that direction) was spot on, the cool treatment given by the white house to the idea all but nails it as fact...

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